Dancing on the stage of memory.

(You know, it wasn’t til LJ decided non-paid members get only three posts a day that I started finding more and more things to talk about.)


So, there was this dream that I had a few days ago. Nothing major, since I find myself dreaming a lot, but for some reason little things about it still stick in my head, and I have found them starting to affect my mood in various ways. But there’s one…one thing that I find has been driving me up the wall. Not because of the people involved, but because of myself. There’s no special occasion around this, no ‘this reminds me of this’ in the air, but I find myself wandering memory’s halls again. I can do that, since this isn’t in the sections that I have wrung my insides out trying to block off.

I had seen two people I knew in college again, just meeting them randomly in some mall or shopping center that would turn into a ballroom once I walked out of there later in the dream. D. and M. I’ll let the names go for now, and just use it that way, but any readers who knew me in college are probably going to know at least the names. They were a couple, who after college I know had gotten married, and have at least one child now that I know of. They entered college as Freshman when I was a Junior, both from the same area and all that, High-School Sweethearts.

I remember meeting them, and just finding them cool. M, the girl, was sweet, pretty in a way that was wholesome without the smooth, polished effort that a lot of the girls I knew in college. I seem to be drawn to that. Intelligent, outgoing, all that. Also, she was the…hmm, how shall I put this? Ah, got it: When I heard that D & M did get married, my first comment was ‘He took her last name, didn’t he?’ Cute couple, but we all knew who wore the pants in that relationship. Actually, even one of my old teachers, on hearing about the marriage, referred to them as a family with her last name more than once. Definite force of nature, with all the drive that entails.

As for D…sigh. It was those days when I had crushes before I really understood what they were, before having such a feeling started tearing my inside apart physically whenever it happened like it does now. It was a good feeling back then, even if I didn’t know really what it was. Friendly, sweet, funny as all hell, and just plain cute. Not the ‘hottie,’ he wasn’t, but he had a look that I find extremely easy on the eyes. Like, the time it looked like he carried a puppy into class, but it was actually a puppet of a Scotty Dog that looked lifelike from a certain distance. I won’t mention the ‘Scotsman’ outfit around one Halloween back then. I didn’t ask it he went ‘regimental’ as Christine refers to it.

I remembered after talking to them during rehearsals that I wanted to be friends with them. The rehearsals were for a 2-person play I had written. I remembered asking D if he wanted to be one of the characters in it, since I had had no real responses to any calls I made for auditions, and he was looking to get involved in the student productions. So, hey, I gave him a shot, and I called in a favor from Todd, a friend of mine since late Freshman year. So that’s how the three of them met. Todd, D, and M.

And the play went well (Of course it did. I wrote it. And directed, and I have two very talented actors for it.), and the three of them hit it off majorly. I mean, big time, to the point where some people were speculating that M was cheating on D, with Todd. I’m trying to remember if there was a breakup for a time, but I…don’t remember, which surprises me more than most would think. But there was no cheating, I’m sure of it. I ended up living with Todd and others in the Townhouses my Senior year, and D&M were around a lot, to hang out with him. They went off a lot, and had their own circle of friends. I wasn’t…there. They were really close, with all the quiet moments and deep stuff and…all of it. At one point, one of them brought it up. “Hey, if it wasn’t for Kyle, we wouldn’t be here. He’s the one who brought us together.”

I think that was at the party, which is the last memory I have of D&M. Todd I ran into a couple of times post-college. It was at Jim’s townhouse, and was yet another cast/wrap party for whatever we were doing two weeks before I graduated. We were all around, and I remember the four of us getting really, really drunk. I know I did, because I was leaving school and all that. At one point, I started giving D a shoulder massage, and I remember how cool it felt when he laughed and said it felt really good. M, she said the same thing when she demanded a turn. (I’m pretty sure she could have kicked my ass any day of the week, so I wasn’t gonna say no, now was I?) I…think that was the last time I saw them.

I remember hearing about the wedding, and how Todd was in it.

See, it tied into the dream I had a few days ago. I had run into D&M in a shopping center or whatnot, and I think I remember a baby carriage because I had remembered they did have a kid, from what I was told. It was the change of hellos and how are yous, and all the usual niceties. But, I kept trying to ask a question, and things kept happening. My shoelace would break, or some other person made a loud noise that took our attention, or…always something.

I wanted to ask them ‘Why?’ Not that I think they hated me, but I wanted that kind of friendship, even if I never really expressed it. (I became quiet and reserved when they were around. Residual shyness. Still have it.) Why him, not me? What did I do or not do?

Silly question, I know. Just that the question and that little piece of that dream lingers with me like a scent barely detectable, like when someone smokes a cigar outside, and you can just catch the hint of the smell on the wind. It’s been…God, almost six years since that point, and I still wonder. Why.